Sunday, May 12, 2013

Put murals at Duke, say readers

We’re exploring how certain places have shaped our community personality, what we might learn from them and what some neighborhoods need to be healthy for next generations.

Let us know what places you have passion for, your concerns and hopes for those places. If you are getting things done in your community, we’d like to hear about that, too. Email Carolyn Washburn, editor and vice president.

Artist Winold Reiss' mosaic mural of workers at Procter & Gamble, which is now in the baggage claim area of the closed Terminal 1 at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. / The Enquirer/Glenn Hartong

Ask your mural questions Have questions or ideas about the murals? Chat with Cliff Radel Monday at noon at Cincinnati.com

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When it comes to finding a home for the nine, old, endangered Union Terminal murals, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Enquirer readers want the murals to go to the Duke Energy Convention Center, the same place some folks hoped the priceless works of art would land 41 years ago.

In an unscientific poll, 112 votes were cast for the murals’ new destination. They must move before the two closed terminals, where the mosaics now stand, are demolished at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in Hebron.

The voters belong to a network of 565 respondents who replied to The Enquirer’s Mural Mystery series. They searched their memory banks to help identify the 35 workers on the entire, 16-piece set of industrial murals that once graced the train station’s concourse.

The majority of votes – 62 – went to the convention center. The Banks/Smale Riverfront Park came in second with 22. The rest of the votes were scattered across the region, from Newport to a Mohawk hillside to Greater Cincinnati’s highways.

The winning result would please area preservationists. They tried to keep the murals on the north side of the Ohio when the train station concourse received its death sentence in 1972 before the murals were moved in 1973 and the concourse demolished in 1974.

“Save-the-murals groups have suggested the Convention Center as an ideal final resting place for these industrial tableaus.”

So wrote the Enquirer’s Tony Lang on Nov. 26, 1972.

Fast forward to 2013. John E. Simpkinson of Hyde Park gave his Top-10 reasons for placing the murals in the convention center, the site preferred by Mayor Mark Mallory.

No. 1 ( drum roll, please): “The walls are large and the murals could be above the crowd so they would be out of harm’s way.”

No. 4 and No. 6 (two more drum rolls, maestro): “The murals would be seen by a large number of locals and out-of-town visitors.” And, “The murals would tell many stories of our city’s history.”

Putting them in the convention center would be in sync with the murals’ original home and purpose. So noted Dale Bardes, a Cincinnati-based architect who worked on the works’ 1973 move.

“In Union Terminal,” he said, “the murals greeted train travelers to Cincinnati. They provided new arrivals with illustrations of the city they were about to visit.”

A similar argument was used by advocates for putting the murals on The Banks or in the adjoining Smale Riverfront Park.

“Tourists could see them from the river and from the ballpark and the Bengals stadium,” wrote Pam Burke of Colerain Township.

Keep in mind, these mosaics cannot be left outdoors. The elements would make them crumble.

Readers knew that. So, they used Dr. O’dell Owens’ argument: “If we can put a man on the moon, we can weather-proof these murals.”

A lot more than weather-proofing would be needed for Bill Byrant’s suggestion. “Put them on flat-bed trucks and take them all over town. Move them from one park to another, from one museum to another.”

Some saw this as a free-to-a-good-home opportunity. Bev Holiday, Newport’s community liaison coordinator, put in dibs for the Newport-based Andrews Steel Rolling Mill mural. Alfred Berger is refurbishing Mohawk’s old hillside Jackson Brewery. “We could fit one or two murals in our building,” he said. “It’s strong and old, built before the Civil War.”

This issue brought out the architecture critic in two readers. Kevin Johnson can see the murals at “Paul Brown Stadium. That place could use a little spice.” Joe Walker suggested “the Horseshoe Casino. The building is a little sterile ... some local history can make the place seem a little more Cincinnati.”

No matter where the murals end up, Mary Hanseman will always view them as “Cincinnati’s song of the Everyman – representing all mankind, fellowship, material goods and knowledge.

“The conflict here is between salvation and destruction,” she added.

“Let’s have our lifetime’s tally include the decision to safeguard these treasures.”